The Cassandra File
by Audriana.L.E
Summary: Full summary on my profile.
1. Prologue

**The Cassandra File**

_Prologue_

_I woke up from my recurring dream with a start, a bead of sweat rolling down my face. It had been months since it happened, but seemed like it happened only yesterday. I checked my alarm clock. Seven fifteen. Hopefully she'd be up by now. Rolling out of bed, I adjusted my plaid pajama pants and t-shirt before treading quietly to the bathroom. I checked in the mirror momentarily before running my brush through my dark blonde hair and pulling it up into a pony tail. I poked my head in to the bedroom I shared with the girls in the academy, before heading down the back stair case to the main hallway._

_John Dewey Academy was a therapeutic boarding school that housed forty to fifty kids and took place in a castle, so when I reached the grand entrance, no one was really up by now. We had an eight o' clock wakeup call that made sure we were up, but we could get up earlier than that. A lot of us did so that we could catch showers before classes started. The only person I saw was Aaron who had desk duty. Normally, phones didn't ring this early in the morning, so it was kind of pointless for him to be there. But Tom Bratter (the school's founder and owner), Ken, and Andrea (the other psychologists and deans of the academy) expected someone to be there and take the shifts. Speaking of which…_

_I peered into the domed office. Andrea was sitting at her computer, typing. As usual, stacks of papers took up all the space on her desk, taunting her with the constant reminder that when Tom died (his ancestors had all died at the early ages in their fifties) she would be taking over the school and have to deal with much more paperwork than she already had. I knocked quietly and opened the door, one foot stepping inside. She looked up from the computer, and swirled in her chair to look at me._

"_Yes, Cassandra?" she asked._

"_Can I talk to you?" I asked her. As her primary, she was supposed to be my therapist and help me with my problems-or deal with whatever ghosts from my "past life of crime" that came back to haunt me. Which leads me to one more thing. I'm not a criminal. As a half-blood, it's in my nature to get into trouble and be framed for things all on the count of grudge-holding gods, monsters, other demigods, dyslexia, and the ADHD. Which is what got me landed first to Wilderness School then this therapeutic boarding school in the first place._

"_Of course. Did you have another dream again?" she asked. I nodded and took a seat in one of the red velvet seats. Above me were intricate designs carved into the white, domed marble. The whole wall behind me was glass, although the room was sound proof. To my left was a large, black marble fire place, and to my right was another window as large as a door. She had one of the nicest offices here at the school._

"_Tell me about it," she instructed, leaning forward in anticipation. I took a deep breath, and began my story._


	2. Chapter 1

I guess it all started out when I was attacked by my to-be stepfather. Let me back up. Who am I? Cassandra Elizabeth Case, demigod and daughter of Apollo. Of course, when I was attacked by my mom's now ex-boyfriend, I didn't know that. About being a demigod, that is.

I had been sitting in my bedroom after school last year, listening to music and trying to cool off from the humidity outside. It was around three, and my mom wouldn't be getting home for another three hours. Not that I could complain. Those three hours alone at home were heaven to me. I could watch TV for hours, eat the snacks in my pantry, and play my music as loud as I wanted without being yelled at or nagged to do anything. It was my own personal sanctuary.

So like I said, I was chilling out listening to my i-pod (pretty loudly I might add) when I heard a door close, which was pretty strange since, like I mentioned, my mom didn't get home for another three hours. I paused my i-pod and listened for a moment, hoping it had just been a part of my imagination or even part of the song I was listening to. The little town of Charlottesville, Virginia didn't have a high crime rate, but there was still the random chance of a theft or even a murder.

As I listened, I heard footsteps. My blood froze and I silently turned off my i-pod and my eyes searched the small part of the house that I could see through my bedroom door. The footsteps stopped for a moment before continuing. They sounded like they were growing closer, but my ears were still in high-volume i-pod mode. I rolled off my bed silently, dropping to the floor and rolling under my bed. It was better to be safe than sorry.

The footsteps grew closer, and I could see a pair of Banana Republic dress shoes that my mom's boyfriend always wore. The feet turned and left and I breathed a sigh of relief before rolling back out from under the bed. I forgot that my mom had given him a house key. But why was he here when he knew my mom didn't get home until six? I hoped it wasn't for one of those stupid bonding days. No kids ever liked their parent's boyfriends or girlfriends. Ever.

"Ryan?" I called as I walked into the kitchen. He was crouched on top of the stool, bent over a raw slab of meat on the table. Without a plate. His shoes were sitting in the sink, and the counter was covered with all the knives in our house. Okay, weird. "Ryan?" his head jerked up as meat dripped off his chin and on to the floor. "What are…what are you doing?" I asked, still cautious. What was up with him? His eyes narrowed and he blinked. I frowned. What did he do, get those cat eye contacts from the color contact website? His eyes were yellow and there weren't any white space showing. His pupils were reduced to black slits. That couldn't be right…

"Cassandra…" he said in a low voice. It was almost a growl. I took a slight step back. I had never known his voice to be that low. He crept onto the table, still crouching. The knives on the table rattled slightly. I took another step back. Did I miss Halloween or something? "You're mother was very ignorant…" he hissed, launching himself off the table. The knives rattled more and inched towards the edge of the counter.

"Umm…"

"Now it's your time to die!" he shouted. The knives flew from the counted and I yelped and ran as they launched themselves at me. I heard as the imbedded themselves in the wall, and Ryan yelled in frustration.

"I'll get you, Cassandra! You dirty half-blood!" he screamed, as I rolled under my bed and tried to stop myself from hyperventilating. What had just happened? Did my mom's boyfriend just suddenly turn crazy and try to kill me? What the-

There was a crashing noise and tinkling of glass. I winced. It was most likely the bookcase with the vase and picture frames. I backed up more towards the wall and deeper under my bed. My hand hit a stray high heel I had worn for last year's dance at my school, and I grabbed it.

"Cassandra Case! You can't hide from me! I'll sniff you out, and then you'll be meeting your end!" Ryan roared. "Let's see, are you in your mother's room?" I heard more crashing. At least it disguised my frantic breathing. I was going to die in here, and even if I did live, my mom wasn't going to believe me that her boyfriend tried to kill me. She was too bent on becoming "Mrs. Thorn" and living happily ever after. Probably send me off to a boarding school once she had her happy married little family. It was a horrible thought, but once she was all star-struck and happy with her (now insane) boyfriend, I was completely out of the picture and she would do anything for him. On my twelfth birthday I got in trouble for the stupidest thing and wasn't allowed to do anything, and then I was dragged off to spend time with her, her boyfriend's family, and her boyfriend's friends on her boyfriend's boat. Then I got in trouble again because Ryan was all unhappy about me being in a bad mood.

"How about the bathroom? Or the living room?" I could hear the couch being ripped into shreds by what sounded like the knives. I was going to be stabbed to death and then my mom would finally see how messed up her boyfriend had actually been. Lately, the guys she picked weren't exactly stellar. For example, the crazy knife guy in our living room trying to kill me. "You can't hide forever, half-blood! Sooner or later, I will find you. And when I do-" There was another tearing of fabric, and then maniacal laughter. It sent chills down my spine, and I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

I heard his footsteps and heavy breathing, and he gave a dark chuckle. I could hear him rubbing the knives together menacingly. I bit down on the side of my cheek. This was it. My mom probably wouldn't even find my body. It would be rolled under my bed and it would take the detectives to find it. I could see his feet stopped at my door.

"Come out wherever you are," he said creepily, sending another set of shivers down my spine. I could hear his knives clinking together. The ADHD part of me wondered if my mom would still use them to cut. We weren't exactly the richest people, and buying new knives would choke my mom's budget.

He got close to my bed and I held my breath, bracing for the worst. I was trapped now, stuck under the bed, free for him to pull me out and stab me. He bent down, and my grip tightened around the heel. It would be my last act, throwing a heel in a killer's face before he gouged me to death. His face came into view and rested against the floor. His cat eyes adjusted to the darkness under my bed, and he grinned, a fanged, sinister smile.

"Gotcha," he whispered. The next few things felt like a blur to me. I remember chucking the heel at his face, and him reeling backwards. But I remember trying to decide whether to stay under the bed or risk clambering out, when I heard footsteps and thumping and screaming. I could see a pair of what looked like goat feet(wait, what?) and a pair of orange and black Emerica shoes with a small pattern of a wing on the side. There was scuffling and shouts and clanking of metal. Sounds of fists hitting skin and an inhuman growling noise. I shut my eyes and tried to will it all away. Maybe if I tried hard enough, all of this would end up being a dream and I had just fallen asleep in class. I could go back to hating my mom's boyfriend in silence (if not still cautious) and try to forget about this nightmare. There was no way something like this could be happening.

There was more shouting, more screaming, more sounds of metal and growling before I saw the three figures exit my bedroom. I laid there, under my bed, curled up in the fetal position with my hands clamped tightly over my eyes. It wasn't real. It couldn't be happening. No one would believe me. I had to get out, to clear my head. Maybe if I left the scene of my dream, it would end and I could get back to being in class or wherever I had fallen asleep.

I peered out from under my bed, trying to keep my head off the ground so that when I hyperventilated, I wouldn't inhale the dust-bunnies that had accumulated under my bed. I could hear the noises coming from outside. Whoever came to my defense, thank you. Now I had to get out of here and wake up.

I threw on my shoes and grabbed my phone as I ran out the front door of my house. On the side, I could see two kids my age fighting what looked to be like a lion but it had Ryan's head and it was shooting knives or arrows out of it's long, scorpion-like tail. The kids seemed to be doing fine with the crazy animal, so I sprinted down the street and didn't turn back when I heard a familiar voice call my name.

Fifteen minutes later, I was, in all sense, lost. I was heading down a dark alleyway that was littered in trash and cardboard, and I was desperately trying to turn on my cell phone so that I could reach my mom. The whole time I had been walking, I had been trying to wake myself up. It hadn't been working. Whish led me to believe that this was, in fact, reality, and I was playing the part of the victim. I tried not to think about the two kids who had been fighting that lion-thin back at my house, but they kept creeping into my mind. Since this was reality, they were real too. So they could have actually gotten hurt.

But they seemed familiar. I knew them from somewhere, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. There was something about that voice and the Emerica shoes that rang a bell…

The same sort of shiver I had gotten with Ryan suddenly crept up on me. I froze mid step, and stopped to listen. There was a rustling in the alleyway, and it wasn't just some stray dog. Something was here with me, and I desperately hoped it wasn't the Ryan/lion thing that tried to knife me back home. There was crash far down, and I whipped around, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was down here. If I had been in a scary movie, the shiver would have cued the daunting music.

On the other side, a trash can tipped over, spilling it's contents onto my path. I wrinkled my nose and tried to breathe through my mouth as I listened carefully. I detected footsteps, close behind me. Before I could think to do anything, a hand was clamped over my mouth, muffling my scream…


	3. Chapter 2

**The Cassandra File**

Cookie to who tells me what Gyles means in Greek!

"_Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but in your dream you were stabbed by your mom's boyfriend? Was it similar to when you close to actually being stabbed by him?" she asked. I sighed. According to the press, no, but that's the power of the mist for you._

"_No," I answered. "This is just a dream, just a twisted version in my mind. My mom's boyfriend never stabbed me. But in my dream he did." Andrea nodded thoughtfully. _

"_Go on," she said._

FLASHBACK

"What in the world are you doing you physcos?" I screamed.

After I had been knocked out in the alleyway, I awoke to find myself in the back of a minivan. If that wasn't weird enough, the minivan was being driven by a sixteen year old guy with flippy brown hair. In the seat next to him was a similar looking person. They had the same flippy hair (although his was sandy blond) and the same sarcastic smile. But the boy in the driver's seat was much younger, and was about my age. In the seat in front of me was someone I knew well…or thought I knew well. It was Gyles, a kid in my seventh grade class. He had poofy-curly brown hair and had a problem walking (which now I see was due to his GOAT FEET), but he was funny enough and people liked him. He had a place in my group of friends, but he wasn't the fall for kind of guy. He was more of the 'hang-out-on-a-Saturday-night-chillin'-at-the-ice-cream-place' kind of person. The kind of guy my friends usually fell for looked more like-

"Cassie, calm down!" Ian screamed. I stared at him and Gyles in disbelief. Here were the kids from school that I hung out wit, kidnapping me!

"What the-"

"Hades," Gyles interrupted me.

"Look, Cassie, we can't explain right now-" Ian started. I wasn't listening. I was too busy screaming at being kidnapped. I thought these people were my friends! I spent every weekend with them downtown and getting ice cream and seeing movies! Now they were kidnapping me!

"Stop screaming, I can't drive while people are yelling!" the driver yelled.

"I'm trying to, Connor, but Cassie won't shut up!" Ian yelled back at him. Connor-the driver-weaved in and out of the cars on the highway, speeding past each and every one of them. He kept checking his rear view mirrors, like something was chasing us.

"I trusted you guys! You've been to my house! And now you kidnap me? Let me out!" I screamed, banging on the windows frantically. Maybe someone in the passing cars would see the kidnapping taking place and get the cops to run us down.

"Cassie! Listen to me! You need to calm down! We're not-well, maybe this can be classified as kidnapping, but you have to listen to us!" Ian exclaimed, fully turned around in his seat.

"We're saving you!" Gyles yelled.

"Saving me! Saving me from what? You're crazy! You're insane!" I accused him. I was shouting so loud that I thought my lungs were going to give out. We were zooming past cars and trucks. I was desperately beating on the windows, trying to get someone's attention. But everyone was so busy with themselves and so _stupid_ not to notice the kidnapping that was taking place.

"Cassie! We're helping you!" he shouted again.

"Oh shut up, Gyles!" I turned to snap at him. "What are you, half deer or something? This is crazy, I don't even want to hear it!" Gyles opened his mouth to answer my first question, thought, went to talk, then thought about it some more.

"I can't win in this conversation, can I?" he asked me. I answered with a hysterical scream and threw a CD I found on the floor at the window. It left a small scratch as the CD bounced off.

"Don't act like we're still friends after this!" I yelled. "Once my mom finds me missing and the police search for me, you'll be blamed for kidnapping and go to jail! I trusted you!" I said again. Who knew my friends would turn against me and kidnap me. What did they want me for? I wasn't amazingly rich! I didn't have some cure for cancer or anything that made me valuable to the world! I wasn't any more special than Ian sitting in the front seat.

And what was up with Gyles? He had goat feet for goodness sakes! Goat feet! This was crazy! I couldn't decide if this was just messed up reality or if it was a crazy dream! First my mom's boyfriend tries to kill me and then-

My mom's boyfriend. What happened to him?

"What about-"

"Ryan Thorn, aka, the manticore?" Gyles asked. I stopped pounding on the windows. What? Manticore, wasn't that mythology? Our history teacher had just told us about it today. It had the head of a man, body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion or dragon that shot poisoned arrows. How was Ryan a manticore! Manticore's were mythology, nothing more!

"Hey, Gyles, names have power!" the driver-I think it was Connor- yelled back at us, checking the rear view mirrors again.

"Sorry, Connor…" Gyles said sheepishly.

"How much longer 'til we reach camp?" Ian asked, turning to Connor. He looked at the clock.

"Two more hours." Camp? What? I wasn't going to camp. If I didn't ace my history quiz tomorrow, I would fail history. And my mom wouldn't be happy.

"What camp? I'm not going to camp! Turn around and take me back before my mom figures out what happened!" I screamed, pounding on Gyle's head seat. He bent down and let out a nervous laugh. "And what was that?" I screamed. I was in a screaming mood, you can't blame me. A lot had happened in the last- I checked the clock- six hours? How long had I been out? My mom was going to be worried sick! She'd probably already called the police already! Our house was probably still in a mess since crazy manticore whatever Ryan tried to knife me to death, and now I was gone! What was she going to think?

"I'm a satyr! Half goat!" Gyles…bleated. I stared at his furry goat legs. Weird. Manticores, satyrs, camp? These people were crazy! And I just thought that all this time that Gyles was the quiet, silly kid I hung out with and that Ian was another guy I hung out with that liked to be a player (Yeah, at thirteen, you can be a player. Meet Ian.).

"Let me out! Turn around! You're all insane! You belong in an asylum!" I was hoping that either a driver finally noticed what was happening or the window broke-whichever one came first.

"Shut her up! I'm under a lot of pressure!" Connor shouted, swerving to avoid a large, commercial truck. Ian sighed and shook his head.

"Gyles, knock her out again," he said dejectedly. I turned to Gyles.

"You'd better not-"

Gyles raised his fist and brought it down on my head, and for the second time that day, I blacked out.


End file.
